The Girl, the Air Castle, and the Unknown Side of the Wogglebug
by WogglebugLoveProductions
Summary: Set after The Runaway in Oz. Everyone is happy Scraps has come home. But Professor Wogglebug grieves the loss of his Air Castle and is about to end it all. But a girl from Outside comes to Oz and discovers his hidden memories in his soul and the side of him that no one else has ever seen. She is determined to restore both his Air Castle to him and his true self to his soul.
1. Chapter 1

The sun had just risen over the horizon over the Land of Oz. It was a warm and brightly sunny day. The birds were chirping, the flowers blooming, and the butterflies fluttering about happily and freely. Everyone was very happy as they awoke in Oz on this morning. There was, however, such place where at least one person in Oz wasn't happy at all to wake up on this beautiful morning.

Within the Royal Athletic College of Oz, Professor Wogglebug groaned deeply with agitation as he opened his eyes feebly. His vision was so blurry at first and he promptly reached over to his nightstand and snatched a pair of spectacles from there which he placed lightly upon nasal winced at the bright rays of the sunshine as they filtered in through his window pane. He yawned with pain at just being awake and slowly got out of bed. He moaned and winced as he did so. His joints in his old and wiry limbs were so weak and frail and could barely hold him up anymore it seemed. He graoned again with agitation and frustration at the ways of his existence.

He dressed himself in great haste. There was not much to his clothing these days. He wore only a long dark gray coat which hung rather loosely over his long and frail body and a thin flat vest that was thinning out from so many ironings. He arranged his necktie and placed his mortarboard cap jauntily on top of his head set in-between his sighed with a heavy and rough edge as he looked up into his bedroom mirror over his dresser and stared for just a moment at his reflection. He had long tired of his reflection being always just the same. Yet today it looked a bit different, but not for the better. It looked even more sour in its frown and even deeper lined with grimness and bitterness, and his big eyes sagged with great agony and grief behind his clear rounded glass spectacles.

"Why...? he muttered. "Why... me...?"

He turned around and slowly trudged out of his bedroom. He went into the next room which was his personal study. While barely looking at anything he walked ever so slowly across the room and towards his desk. He glanced briefly at some blueprint plan papers lying there and his lip trembled ever so slightly as he did so. Before he closed his eyes tightly and turned his head away and moaned very faintly as he did so.

When he opened his eyes again he found himself staring out the window of his study. The sun did not shine as brightly on this side because of the arched overhanging of a terrace just outside attached to the college grounds. Still, Professor Wogglebug's eyes still winced in pain and grief at the sight of one thing he could clearly see. A little rope cord just lying there on the ground and still attached to the long banister pole attached to the terrace of the college itself. What that rope cord had been once attached to, only just a week ago still clouded his mind with a sense of dark gray clouds that rained grief upon his great brain so painfully. For even though he was so intellectual and throughly educated he still couldn't help but feel nothing but a deep hollows all through him right from the center of his being as he recollected everything that had transpired just a week ago.

Then once again he had to ask in a whisper to himsef, "Why me?" He looked down and began to slowly close his eyes. "Why me?" he asked again. "Why did this have to happen to me? Why did it have to work out this way? Why couldn't things have just worked out the way they were planned to for just once... just once in my life? How could a thing like this happen to one so brilliant and throughly educated as me? I mean, all I just wanted was nice relaxing vacation just for myself... was that actually such a wrong thing to want? Was it? Why does no one seem to have any respect for me?"

His musings were rudely interrupted when he was startled out of his reverie by the sharp knocking upon his door. He whirled around abruptly, his face burning with agitation.

"Come in here!" he shouted towards the door. "How dare you disturb me at this time of day!" he added before the door was even opened.

Slowly, a young Munchkin boy opened the door and peered precuatiously into the room. "Professor," he began meekly. "It's me. I've just come to let you know Alexample's parents have arrived now. For your meeting with them."

"Well, why didn't you say so in the first place?" he snapped angrily in the young boy's direction. "You are just too slow for your own good!"

"I do apologize, Professor," replied the boy who's name was Zif. He tentaitively entered the room while still keeping close to the doorway. "But Professor, I feel I should ask why you are so hard on me, and all of us all the time? Why must you feel the need to expel Alexample? I mean, he did say he was sorry to you, after all."

"Why how dare you question me and my reasons!" Professor Wogglebug shouted at Zif so loudly that a light in the room seem to flicker for a moment off and on. "His being sorry he stole away my Air Castle will never bring it back to me after all! He must be punished and he should be grateful to me I'm only expelling him and not worse! 

"I apologize once again, Professor," said Zif briskly, his face pale as chalk. "It's just that Alexample's parents seem so regretful and grieved about it. He was after all a Talented and Gifted student for his age and.."

"Silence!" shouted Professor Wogglebug. He coughed and then cleared his throat for a moment and then looked more calmly at Zif and said evenly, "I couldn't care less about how Alexample or his parents feel. No one cares about how I feel about this, either after all. Zif, when you have lost an Air Castle of your own, you will be welcome to come to me and speak all you want about how I should feel about it and what I should do about it. But until such ever happens... I really... really.. wish to not see you around here anymore!"

Zif gasped as he suddenly came to realize just what the Professor was implying by this. "Oh.. but no! Professor you can expel me, too! I need to be here, or my..."

"I said get out of here!" Professor Wogglebug shouted and took a menacing step forward while picking up a walking stick nearby and jabbing it in Zif's direction.

Zif gasped in horror and ran away out the door with tears streming down his face. He neglected to close the door behind him. Professor Wogglebug went briskly to the door and exited it. He glanced down the hall at Zif running away as if for his life. Then he went in the opposite direction and towards the amin entrance of the college of where he was to have his meeting with Alexample's parents.

"Why?" he muttered to himself once again. "Why was I cursed... with such insolent students! Cursed I am with such a miserable existence!"

It had only just been but a week ago that it had all took place. Professor Wogglebug was tired and sick of being shut up inside his stuffy chambers of his college all the time, and so he decided now it was the time for him to have a vacation. It was his first vacation in two score years. He had heard about how dreams inside the mind's eye can be wielded into a solid reality if the mind and will to do so is great enough and so he taught himself how to visualize very vividly while he was asleep. He took many naps over a period of time as he carefully dreamt up his unique Air Castle in which he was to spend his vacation in for at least a week. He spent countless hours dreaming and working literally at the same time in his mind, and it seemed to be working well. He kept the Air Castle attached to a rope cord just outside the college to keep it in place until he was ready to get into it and float away for a while and back again.

Then just when he had completed his construction of it, everything took a turn for the worse and most unexpectedly. The Patchwork Girl who was running away from the Emerald City that day accidentally unfastened the cord that kept the Air Castle in place while on her spoolicycle, and Alexample his top student had ended up getting caught on the rope and got carried away with the Air Castle as Scraps dragged it away with her. He had come out just in time to watch as it floated away from his grasp. He was horrified, and then infuriated that such a thing could actually happen.

So he had set out then for the Emerald City to report of this to the Wizard and hopefully receive his help in the matter of getting back his Air Castle. Only to then be informed along the way by Jenny Jump that both the Wizard and Ozma also had left the Emerald City on political affairs, much to his dismay. So then he and Jenny Jump, along with Jack Pumpkinhead, had set out to look for Scraps and his lost Air Castle. Then he had basically spent the whole entire week he was to spend his vacation searching for his Air Castle instead of enjoying it as he had expected to.

Then at the end of the week he had just stood and watched as it had just melted away right before his very eyes. It had all just disintigrated into thin air and then vanished without a trace. He had to admit he hadn't actually known that the Air Castle wouldn't last and would dissipate the moment his intended vacation time was up. Yet that was what happened. Except he never even got the vacation he wanted. Instead Alexaple and Scraps and the others with them had used it instead. This was an ourage! It was meant for him and not them! This was unforgivable! It was a theft of an intellectual property that wa shis alone by right after all! It may have started out as just an accident pull but then it just turned into a deliberate theft on Alexample's part, even if they hadn't known either that the Air Castle wouldn't last.

Professor Wogglebug got through with his meeting with the parents of Alexample who was expelled from the college on grounds of a second-degree theft of what did not belong to him but was really meant for a superior.

He sighed wearily and began to walk away again afterward. That was taken care of now. But as he had told Zif, it still seemed like it was not enough for him. It actually felt to him as if nothing could ever ammend to the great void he felt inside him for his grievance of what he had lost. He was halfway down the hall, walking very slowly, whne he stopped short when he was startled by the sound of the front door to the college being knocked upon. It was a very heavy and hard knock also.

He groaned and grimaced and tried to walk a bit more quickly as he went to the door and opened it again. There stood the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman at his doorsteps. They were both smiling from ear to ear, especially the latter. They borh looked at him in this way as if they thought he shouldn't have anything remotely to be upset about.

The Scarecrow took off his hat and tipped it to him. "Good morning, Professor Wogglebug!" he said cheerily. "It's such a lovely morning!"

He stared at him and scowled for a moment before he rasped at them, "Just why would this be a good morning to me? And why would there be anything lovely I would find about today, of all days? I would like to know!"

Both the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman abruptly stopped smiling. The Scarecrow stammered uneasily for a moment and then replied, "Well, it should be! After all, I just learned about how my dear Patachwork Girl has come home again! I hadn't even known she had been gone actually before now! But how glad I am she has come home at least! For I would have missed her most grieviously if she had actually left for good! I hope she never decides to run away again, and even if she does she will just come to me instead!"

The Tin Woodman glanced toward the Scarecrow and nodded. Then turned to Professor Wogglebug and said, "And so of course there will be a welcome home party just for Scraps this evening. I am attending also, of course. As I will be so glad to be able to go to Scraps then and apologize to her for being so angry with her last week. I should have known. She can't help being the way she just is, and of course that is what makes her so special just the way she is! I am also so glad she came home again, or I would have felt so guilty in my heart that she had gone away!"

"Of course!" bewailed Professor Wogglebug. "Of course, Scraps has come home again and everyone is happy that she is! But my Air Castle is gone forever and it will never come back to me! And... it... is.. all... her... fualt!"

The Scarecrow and Tin Woodman both looked quite taken aback by his sudden outburst. The Scarecrow began to stammer once again and couldn't seem to find words this time. So the Tin Woodman answered for him.

"I take it then you mean to say you will not be attending Scarps' welcome home party and are declining our invitation to come?" he said.

"What do you mean by having the audacity to want to invite me to a wretched get together event for that horrendously mishapen quilt covered bag of cotton stuffing!" Professor Wogglebug shouted so hard it made them both step back abashed.

"But... can't you just forgive Scraps for what happened to your Air Castle?" inquired the Tin Woodman.

"Well... let me think about it! Oh! No, I never can!" he replied in one great heated breath.

"Well... But I should have thought that Alexample was better deserving of an Air Castle vaction than you ever were!" said the Scarecrow as calmly as if he were answering a trivial question he didn't need to even think about. "Why can't you just be happy that your top student got it at least?"

Now Professor Wogglebug stared at the Scarecrow as if in shock for a moment. Then he began bretahing very rapidly and looked him straight in the eyes and stated very coolly, "You, Scarecrow, have been reputed to have the best and greatest of brains in all of Oz, right?

"Right," said the Scarecrow rather confused at the questioning.

"Well," continued Professor Wogglebug, "it is a greta wonder to me then that your brains can't register the fact I am too grieved in my loss to be happy for anyone or anything.I suppose it's true what I suspected all of the time. Your brains simply have a complete lack of sympathy or even empathy." Then he pointed an accusing finger at the Tin Woodman and added, "And you, Nick Chopper, claim to have a great heart that can feel a great deal of sympathy for others in pain. Well, I am afraid I must still let you know that until you have lost a great thing of your own creation, like an Air Castle crafted to your own specifications, you will be ever unwelcome to come back here and convey sympathy for what I have lost or tell me how I should feel or what I should do about it. Now, I don't mean to be rude to you, but I mean it when I say that I have no intention of attending the aprty you spoke of and I really, really don't want to see Scraps, or either of you again for a long, long time!"

"But you can't really mean that...?" The Scarecrow started to claim.

But just then Professor Wogglebug had gone swiftly back inside his college and slammed the door shut, right in their faces.

"I think he did mean it, really," stated the Tin Woodman.

"Boy! He is even ruder than I remember him last!" the Scarecrow said with exasperation.

"But, you know that he did have a point at least," said the Tin Woodman thoughtfully.

"What do you mean?" asked the Scarecrow curiously.

"I mean, he was right," Nick Chopper went on. "Neither of us had ever had our hearts broken by the loss of one such as he has just suffered. I suppose we can't understand, and he has gone through something of which only another someone who has suffered so great of loss or pain can understand."

The Scarecrow had to agree the Tin Woodman was making sense. "But who could that be who can understand him in ways we never will?" he inquired offhandedly.

"Who indeed?" echoed the Tin Woodman. "Who indeed, I'd like to know."


	2. Chapter 2

In the evening at the Emerald City the party in the honor of the Patchwork Girl's return was in full swing. Patchwork designed balloons and threadbear confetti fell from the ceiling magically courtesy of the Wizard's magic arts Everyone gathered in the ballroom danced and clapped and cheered along together. Laughter and smiles were all about as far as any faces could be seen. Everyone in the Emerald City was there, as well as many visiting celebrities, and also Popla the Power Plant and the Twinkler who were the two new friends Scraps had made on her latest adventure.

Two particularly happy smiling faces that were present were the Scarecrow's and Scraps' as they danced together arm in arm while they paraded down a makeshift yellow brick road laid upon the green marble floor. They laughed and giggled while glancing at each other as they swung their free arms out at the sides and kicked their feet left to right in a downright merry Ozzy jig. They stopped when they reached the end, turned to each other and bowed. The Scarecrow nearly started to fall backwards as he did so but Scraps reached out and caught him while bringing him into her fond embrace at the same time. Everyone surrounding them applauded and laughed in unison.

The Scarecrow chuckled and and looked into the Patchwork Girl's face as he brought one of his straw stuffed gloved hands to her quilted cheek and stroked it tenderly.

"Ah.. my dear Scraps," he said softly. "How glad I am that you came home. I will admit I hadn't known you had run away until the day before you returned but still I was getting worried something awful for you and was making preparations with the Tin Woodman to set out on a journey of our own to find you and bring you back. I'm glad there was no need to, and glad you are here again safe and sound at home where you are beloved by all here, especially me."

Scraps gazed into the Scarecrow's face as well as she giggled softly and replied, "Oh my dearest Scarecrow, how you've told me again and again about how happy you are I've come home. But I will never tire of hearing it! For I couldn't be happier either that I came home to you. I can't believe how I almost left you for good. For you are the very essence which holds my stitching altogether, and so without you I'd just fall apart."

"And, believe me, it is all but the same way with me," the Scarecrow assured her tenderly as he stroked her red yarned hair.

Everyone around them was silent for a moment and then the Tin Woodman stepped forward while wiping a stray tear away from the corner of his eye. He approached Scraps and said while putting a hand to his heart saying,

"And I, my dear Miss Patches, am also extremely happy that you have come home. For life in Oz would never have been the same without you. Did I mention yet that I am really very sorry that I had been rather angry with you on the night before you left?"

Scraps gave a hearty laugh as she stepped up to the Tin Woodman and clapped him audibly on his tin shoulder. "Why, only about seven times in the last twenty-four hours, old chum!"

Nick Chopper flushed slightly and chuckled softly. "Well, this makes the eighth," he said.

"And did I mention your apology's accepted, by the way?" added Scraps hopefully.

The Tin Woodman nodded and smiled brightly. "Every time," he assured her.

Scraps looked all around her at her surrounding friends looking upon her with their warm smiles of fondness and adoration towards her and felt the moment was right now. She put her hands up to where her heart should be and with a deep breath she belted out a high pitched verse she made up on the spot.

"Oh, how glad I am to be home again!  
For home is just the most perfect place to be!  
So I am as happy as can be!  
Just as certainly as you all can see!

Just last week I was so sad!  
For I was just so bad!  
I had made a mess and run away!  
Now I am here to stay!

For I am in good cheer!  
With all of you gathered here!

All of you and me are one another's friend!  
Just as we shall all be to each other to the end!"

Scraps spread her arms out as she completed her verse on a high note and then bowed her head and curtseyed. Everyone laughed, cheered, and applauded her.

Then Dorothy Gale, Betsy Bobbin, Trot, Button-Bright, and Ojo came up to Scraps nad one by one they all hugged her all at the same time. She hugged them all back for the children in Oz were her very best friends after the Scarecrow and Tin Woodman after all.

"We're so happy you're here again with us, Scraps!" Dorothy assured her. "We missed you something awful on the night you left that you were to perform at the banquet and the dance you would have done to Jack's shoe orchestra."

"And we would have missed you worst of all if you ahd actually been lost," added Betsy.

"And not to mention we would also have missed your colors if you had remained black," added Trot.

Scraps cuddled the children in her thick arms and murmured, "I would have so missed you all also, and as well as my colors if the black had been permenant." Then after a moment's thought she added brightly, "But I am for certain there would never have been anything that Ozma and the Magic Belt couldn't have restored! For look at me now!"

And with that she twirled all around everyone before her much to their great delight and amusement.

Everyone gathered in the room inside was so happy and blissful they took no notice at all of the dark clouds that were gathering in the sky just outside the window in lead of the oncoming storm.

It was also back at the Royal Athletic College that Professor Wogglebug didn't notice the storm clouds brewing in the darkening sky just outside the window of his bedchambers. But his reason was a completely different one altogether. It was not from overwhelming bliss and happiness, but from overwhelming grief and bitterness.

For he found that going through with exspelling Alexample from his College was but only a small and rather insignificant consolation in the face of the magnitude of the loss of his Air Castle and all that had gone into its making and above all, the loss of the utterly wonderful and relaxing vacation he could have enjoyed within it even if just for a week.

 _How could this have happened?_ he lamented to himself mournfully. _How could this have been allowed to have happened to me!? How could this have ever been allowed to have happened to one so thoroughly educated?!_

He sat upon the edge of his bed bemoaning what could have been but never would be with him and his Air Castle. He began to also think about his utterly sad and miserable existence in Oz. Didn't it seem like things like this always seemed to happen to him in some way or another from the very beginning? Come to think of it, his life here in Oz was no life at all. It was but only a half of a life for it felt cursed with misfortune and sorrow at every turn and curve.

He thought about how ater the Patchwork Girl had been turned all black from the cons-quences smoke bombs and must have felt just as miserable and dejected and forsaken from the loss of her colors as he himslef was now feeling from the loss of his Air Castle. She and the rest of them had thought it was a permenant condition for her at first based on what they'd heard. But then they had convinced Scraps to come home with them to the Emerald City and right there before everyone, Scraps had appealed to Ozma and wished for her colors to be restored. Then Ozma had touched the Magic Belt around her waist and said, "Is done." Then Scraps took off the long white sheet over her and it was revealed before all eyes that her colors were fully restored to her. Now he knew Scraps was at this moment celebrating her return home and restoration of her colors with all who were gathered in the Emerald City for everyone was very happy for her.

 _But no one will ever restore anything I've lost,_ he thought forlornly. _No one will. Ever. Not even Ozma herself would ever think to grant me a wish to be a happy for antyhing I'd ever want. She doesn't actually care about me. No one does. As much as I am highly magnified and thoroughly educated no one likes me or even cares about me. Not even Ozma really does, either. True, she may always invite me to her parties, and her counsel meetings, but she really cares nothing for my well-being. Just as all the others around her may sometimes be friendly to me or now and then have a compliment for me, but they really don't like me or care about me at all, either!_

He remembered what he had said to Jenny Jump in the forest during the time Jack Pumpkinhead had literally lost his head and she wished they could find a new pumpkin to give him a new head with. He had replied to her then, "What good would that ever do? He would only just discover we are hopelessly lost!" Then he had added, "I never thought I'd admit such a thing but ignorance is something I wish I possessed!"

 _And it is something I wish I possessed now more than ever,_ he lamented with a sigh so deep he felt almost exactly like an utterly deflated balloon. _After all, why should I put my superior education to use if it won't be appreciated? And why should I put my excellent intellect to use if its only going to be wasted on something that will never come to be?It seems just as no one in Oz has a mind like my own no one should have one, either! I do so wish I'd never become highly magnified, or even thoroughly educated, neither one!_

He was only vaguely aware of a loud thunderclap that came from just outside his window while a moment later a great streak of lightning flashed across the sky and illuminated the window pane.

He heaved a deep sigh and looked up while closing his eyes, blotting out any vision or light from them at all. He sat there rigid stiff and thought with great firmness and finalment, _I can't go on anymore. I don't know how It must all come to an end somehow_.

But how? This was the Fairyland of Oz, after all. An end was impossible to anyone, wasn't it? But then, in Oz wasn't anything possible and nothing impossible also? He would have to find out. First thing tomorrow morning he would look into anything he could find to succeed at making his own end. This would the last time he would ever put his enormous intellect to use at anything at all, and then no more.

It was with these thoughts situated within his mind that he exhaled and collapsed onto his bed for slumber, not bothering to undress. His heart and mind were so heavy they were immune to being distubed by the great clashing of thunder and splintering of lightning just outside of his college along with the torrential downpour of the storm that had come.

It was also at this very moment that within her Ruby Palace in the Quadling Country, Glinda the Good was looking into her Great Book of brows furrowed in great concern as she read the new pages. She knew right then and there that something had to be done. Something that had never been done before now. For now was the time.


End file.
